‘Selfie’ Crowned Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year 2013

PetaPixel

Well, this news will probably either make you shake your head or cringe, but there’s no avoiding it: Selfie has officially been named the Oxford Dictionaries’ “Word of the Year 2013″ thanks to the ridiculous surge in popularity the word has enjoyed over the past year.

But none of those words could compete with the sheer increase in usage of the word ‘selfie’ when it came to crowning this year’s word of the year (and that’s despite what must have been a pretty drastic increase in usage of the word ‘twerk’ after the Miley Cyrus incident).

Of course, selfies don’t always have to be a selfish, narcissistic thing. The #unselfie movement is actually helping raise money for typhoon Haiyan victims.

According to the Oxford Dictionaries’ editors, ‘selfie’ — which initially appeared on the scene all the way back in 2002 — has seen a 17,000% uptick in usage in the last year alone! That’s not a typo: for better or worse, 17,000 is the right number…

Interestingly, this is the second year in a row that a photographic term has earned the right to be called word of the year. Last year’s crown went to the term GIF. Here’s hoping 2014 makes the hat-trick.